Composting Toilet - Part 1: My Head-Ache

Living in a marina and sailing inland waters, 

it's not only against the law to pump sewage overboard, it's just wrong.  So a modern marine head pumps poop and pee into a holding tank...  

Sedna's holding tank was forward under the vberth with a pumpout opening on the deck.  

Every once in a while I'd motor over to the pump out station and empty the tank. The pump out works like a giant vacuum cleaner and with a little practice I didn't get a faceful of ick when doing it. 

But I had a few issues with this arrangement.

1. The input for water to the toilet was down under the floorboards meaning I had to lift the boards and open and close the valve when coming to the boat or leaving for any length of time.  No one wants to come home after a week away to find their house underwater from a ruptured hose.

2. The hoses in the head (bathroom) rose up 4 feet on the wall looking ugly and requiring a lot of pumping to get the sewage up over the peak so that gravity could do it's thing.

3.  The hose to the holding tank was so long that poo-water was trapped in the line and backflowed into the head (toilet) if one didn't close the valve every time one used the toilet.  

Most guests do not enjoy taking a master level course in plumbing just to go to the bathroom.

The daunting task of fixing my head was inevitable.

I just couldn't see how simply replacing my toilet was going to solve my issues.  I could move the holding tank closer to the Head and shorten the hoses.  I could replace gaskets and couplings.  No matter what, I'd still be packing a tank full of stinky sewage.  And... I'd have the big loops of hoses and holes (sea cocks) in the bottom of my boat.

I began researching other options and what I found surprised me.

There were threads on Cruisers Forum from happy converts to composting toilets. Then there were the You Tubes, Blogs, and Waterless Toilet Web Sites (Separett, Natures Head, Air Head, C-Head).  Being a lifelong tree hugger, I was off and running.




Next thing I knew I was ripping out my old head and plumbing.  Believe me, it was a dirty gross job.  

The worst part was removing the hoses.  I tried decoupling, and finally resorted to sawing, ripping, and yanking with authority!



There was the issue of the through hull to be plugged.  



I tapped in a temporary wooden plug, but I still had this thing about coming home from working out of town all week to a sunken boat. And I knew from trial that the open sea cock gushed like a fire hose.  This little issue was solved by an expanding neoprene plug from the hardware store (cost $4).  I did replace the standard washers, bolt, and nut that came with the plug with stainless steel to avoid galvanic corrosion. 



I needed a temporary toilet during the reconstruction and chose a simple 5 gal bucket from Home Depot with my old toilet seat atop.  For now, I pee into a separate container.  Eventually I will have a urine separating toilet (more about that later). 




A trip to the garden center and a couple bucks and I had my peat moss compost base.  



Amazingly, even this simple solution is contained and doesn't smell like poop.

I have a temporary lid with vent for when I'm out of town to improve air flow and keep the material in the bucket dry.  I've also tried adding ashes from my wood stove, coffee grounds, and bought a coco-hull brick for composting medium.  I read coffee is a natural pesticide.

 
I bought some black buckets because they apparently keep the bugs/flies at bay.  I got some screw lids, grates, and PVC tubing.  One nice thing, all this stuff is cheap and simple to work with.



Now I'm in the design and mock-up stage.  My challenge is the small space available, won't hold a commercially built unit so I'm going DIY...  I downloaded a 3D modeling tool called Sketchup and I'm really having fun with the whole project.

Brewing Beer Onboard

A couple of threads on Cruisers Forum discussed the practicality of brewing beer onboard.  I brewed up a batch yesterday... so took the opportunity to document what has worked for me. 

Having brewed my own beer since 1982, I wasn't about to stop just because my home is now a boat.  Few supplies are required and, due to the lack of space, I have minimized the process and the size of everything involved. 



Rather than cooking whole grain and sparging, I use powered malt.  

Rather than dry hopping, I use pellets.  








And rather than fermenting in a 5-6 gal carboy I use 1 gal glass jugs. In the old days cider and vinegar came in these, but I haven't seen glass in grocery stores for a long time.  You can buys jugs like these at a brewing store for about $3 ea.  I usually shop at Steinbart's in Portland, OR or Bader's in Vancouver, WA... both have an online stores and ship if you don't happen to live in Beervana. 


I first went to F.H.Steinbart Company when I was 10 yrs old (1964).  My father owned a draft beer equipment company in Boise, ID and we would make an annual pilgrimage to the warehouse of plenty... so they know a thing or two about beer.  But I digress...


After washing everything with a mild chlorine bleach solution (I think I read 1 oz of bleach per 5 gallons of water was enough, so I just use a splash)... I fill the bottom of my 1 gal jugs with a few inches of fresh cool water while bringing (1.5 qt) water to a boil in my pasta pot. I also heat water in a smaller pan to a boil at the same time. 



I stir in about 1 lb of powdered malt per gallon of brew. Careful not to boil over, it's a sticky mess! I also stir in a tad of malt to the small pan of water, but turn the burner off, cover, and let it cool.  Keep the larger pot at almost a boil (simmer?) and stir the wort for about 15-20 minutes. 





Add a packet of hop pellets to the small pan and stir until the pellets dissolve and the hop powder is well suspended in the mixture.  


Carefully pour the wort from the large pot into the glass jugs. The cool water in the bottom of the jugs keeps them from cracking... there's no hurry, so relax and avoid burns... the wort needs to cool anyway before you add the yeast.  



When the wort in the 1 gal bottles is cooled to room temperature, dissolve the packet of yeast in the small pan of room temperature hopped wort and pour into the jugs.

Tada!!! It's on it's way to being beer, and now just wait about 1 week or so while nature to take its course.  Then we can bottle.





There is one little detail... During the first few days of initial fermentation, the beer foams and sometimes bubbles out the top of the carboy/jugs.  So, with a 5 gal carboy and dry hops, I put the carboy in a big wash tub and run a 1 in diameter hose from the mouth of the carboy to a gal bucket 1/4 full of water. This acts as an air trap.  


With the 1 gal jugs I plug a small diameter hose into the airlock corks run it to a container 1/4 full of water.  I'm leaving town for a week, so I won't miss my french press...






I forgot to take pix of the airlocks, but you can see them in the coffee cup. When I return, I'll fill them half full of water and replace the hoses with them. The airlocks should burp, blup, blup, blup... until the blups are about 30 secs apart. 




Then I'll disolve 1/4 cup of corn sugar into simmering water, add that to the wort and siphon or pour the wort into snap cap beer bottles to condition for a little over a month.

The yeast settles in the bottom of the bottle, so I pour my beer into a glass for drinking and rinse the bottle immediately. In my opinion, the most difficult and crucial part of brewing is washing the bottles. 




I fill the bottles with a couple inches of chlorinated water and spin/scrub with a brush like this.  The wire handle bends to facilitate cleaning tough to reach locations like the top of the carboy/jug.

Tip: I wrap a wash rag around the mouth of the bottle of when pulling out the brush so the bristles won't splatter chlorine water all over. 

15 Bottles capped, I'll allow 4-8 weeks before opening the bottles and drinking. It depends a lot on conditions, mostly temperature, so bottling on New Years Eve, it'll probably be March 1 before this batch will be ready to drink.



I think one advantage of 1gallon carboys is that I can easily get another gallon or two brewing while these bottles condition and with good timing have some beer to drink, some bottle conditioning, and gallons in fermentation. 

Cheers and enjoy brewing. Try it, it is easy and rewarding.

Living a Full Life

It's Thanksgiving 2013 and a beautiful day outside. Monday of this week I was blessed with meeting a real genuine person... But first the back story.


Now about 84 years of age, Joie Smith has been running Alpine Towing in Rhododendron on Mt Hood for 45 years.  I met Joie 6 years ago when I got my truck stuck in the snow up by the cabin. 

by Gary Randall

I was pretty surprised when the tow truck showed up and this little lady climbed down and started yanking out the tow cable.  Since then I've called Joie to order firewood, because she delivers the best Tamarack and it ensures I get to see her.  So, I was quite disappointed when I called her this year and she said she was just too old and couldn't do it any more... 






I stopped in at Welches Mt. Building Center to ask Rochelle who I should call and she recommended a couple good people... 


I called George and arranged to get a cord and a half of guaranteed good Tamarack delivered the next afternoon. 

Believe it or not, buying firewood can be a bit stressful.  There's lots a people selling it, some good, some not so good... and when you get a bad load it haunts ya all winter long.  But when I saw George's face, I knew I hit a gold mine.  There was a twinge of stress, but a big smile.  

I'd gone out to the road to show him the way in and he was about 20 minutes late.  He apologized for being late and said he had to fix his grand daughters plumbing before he split half the load and drove over.  


We chatted as we unloaded the wood, and when I admired a couple flies in George's cap he told me the Steelhead were running bright in the Deschutes, that he'd been flyfishing in the area for 70 some years, and he wrote the book When the River Ran Wild. "Holy cow George,  I read that book... You're famous!
So, if you don't mind me asking, how old are you?"... He continued to toss logs off the truck and answered.. 84.  We worked and talked about his life as a builder, logger, running a gas station.  But he seemed just as interested in me as telling his stories.  Over a cup of coffee and piece of pie he told us about his kids, grand kids, great grand kids...

As I walked George out to his truck and I said I enjoyed our conversation and I'd give him a call again... he said "this is probably my last year doing firewood".  Well... maybe we can go fishing then?

Gadgets. . .

When I tell people that I live on a sailboat, they naturally talk about sailing, anchoring, and the wind through your hair.  But, living on a boat really involves more cooking, cleaning, and other non-glamorous household chores than sailing. Consequently I get a little thrill when using kitchen gadgets like these.

 

propane burns really hot and this little number dissipates heat so i don't burn everything. 












My friend Jenny bought the dish drainer pad below for me.  It's great.  Whatever it is made of, it dries quickly and I don't have moldy wet towels on the counter.  










I don't have a picture of my favorite gadget, a hand operated food chopper, so these are not my beautifully manicured nails. . . they're from the internet :) 








This is my second favorite.  My hand crank coffee grinder.

Fit's nicely onto the top of my french press and it's adjustable.  French press makes great coffee and is easy to clean without requiring filters.











The Previous owner mounted the little (white hanging down) toggle on the kitchen faucet. Leave the water pressure on and when you touch the toggle with a pot, plate, or cup the water runs.  Saves a lot of water.


I cutout the opening in the sink cover to get more counter room.  Even with the sink cover in place, I can fill cups and pots with water using the hand pump.


I keep an old school wire dish drainer in the sink, it just fits under the sink cover.



Not a kitchen gadget, but when my WiFi signal is weak I can plug this external receiver to by laptop and get better reception.

It has a 10 foot USB cable that I can run out the hatch and hang the receiver from my boom.  I live in Oregon so that's waterproof tape on the connection.









Another favorite is my solid fuel burner (wood stove).  This little baby really heats up the saloon.  I use it to dispose of paper and cardboard.  The ashes go into the composting toilet.









I nice feature is that the stove pipe goes out through the head... keeping it warmer and drier in there too.

Chart Table and Instrument Panel

Last summer I replaced my weathered and rotting chart table and instrument panel.  The old wood crumbled during the deconstruction. Non-functioning  instruments were tossed.













For my chart table, I reused a salvaged teak table top... the instrument panel and fiddles are from African mahogany  The top basically matches the the seats and exterior trim.  The instrument panel matches the interior and mahogany hatch panels.




While I was at it, I moved the Radar display from it's head bonking location below deck up to the chart table. It is so much easier to see now.  Of course rerouting the Radar cable was harder than building the table and panel. . .now I want to sew up a water resistant cover for the display, it never ends...